Names
by Rui
Summary: Xellos is beyond ill and Xelas has the perfect solution: kill the one causing his pain. Simple enough, right? But it's not as easy as you'd think...


**Names **

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Disclaimer: Slayers and co. belong to those who created, published and got expensive lawyers to protect their characters and such. This is me, who only does this for nonprofit and for entertainment. Be kind, please don't sue! I don't have any money…that's why I'm writing fan fiction instead of buying manga or anime DVDs.

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"I told you to kill her when you had the chance. Before you got too attached." Xelas sneered as her priest trembled before her in pain. "Now look at you." With a sigh and a quick sip of wine, the Beastmaster reclined back in her throne. "What do you have to say for yourself, Xellos?"  
  
With a great deal of effort, the general pried his abnormally darker than normal eyes opened. His slit pupils were burning with a deep gold as the black energy which held his form in tact slowly snaked its way out of the corners of his eyes. Living on pain as a mazoku, the priest was not use to receiving pain that was anything more than physical. This hurt dragged its claws across every nerve he possessed. It stabbed at his core deeper and deeper with every breath.  
  
The blond mistress raised an eyebrow as Xelloss curled into a tighter ball, clenching his fang like teeth tightly together to cut off the groans of suffering. The black globs of physical energy rolled down over his forehead and pooled on the floor, causing his normal healthy purple hair to turn black.  
  
No matter what he was going through, his master was correct. She had warned him once upon a lifetime ago. Although she wouldn't directly involve herself in his affairs, Xelas strongly argued that it would end painfully. Xellos had always figured she meant it would end painfully for Filia, not for him. Yet here he was, withering in agony and cursing his creator for always being right.  
  
"I can make you feel better, son." Xelas purred. Through the white hot ripping sensation, the priest was able to feel a slight fear at her casual address. Although he was created from her, she rarely acknowledged their 'kinship' and when she did it wasn't to show affection, it was to soften a nasty blow about to be dealt. "All you have to do is kill her now."  
  
His eyes widened at the idea. Indeed, such a suggestion was a staggering blow to the already suffering mazoku.  
  
"Don't look at me like that." The blond headed female said coolly. "It would correct the problem and all of your 'friends' would grieve. Imagine all their lovely emotions of hate and grief feeding you for weeks and months. Doubtlessly it would mend all your wounds and leave you even stronger." The Lord got a far off look in her eye as if daydreaming about some romantic figure in her dreams.  
  
If she believed in romance or if she dreamed.  
  
If she had a heart.  
  
Xellos opened his mouth as if to protest but a deep groan erupted from his throat instead.  
  
Coming back to the matter at hand, Xelas smirked at her minion. "All you have to do is agree and I can make you feel better long enough to complete the task." His answer was silence. "Tell me, do you love her?"  
  
Xelos, through pinched eyes, looked at his master. There was no safe way to answer that. If he said 'yes' Xelas would let him die or kill the cause of the troubles. If he said 'no' his master would then chirp that there should be no problem with the demise of the other person. The only safe route to take was not to say anything at all.  
  
At the cold, fierce chuckle which erupted from Beastmaster's voice, he knew she was very aware of his thought pattern. "I see. Always so clever, Xellos." Her jocular mood turned to ice. "Except for this matter." In a thought she appeared, kneeling in front of him. Taking his trembling chin on the tips of her fingertips, she turned her 'son's' face towards her. "Do you want to live?"  
  
Easy question, "Yes."  
  
"Do you want me to help you?" Xelas purred. At his hesitation, the Beastmaster sneered. "Someone is going to die, Xellos. You already confirmed that you didn't want to be the martyr which means it has to be that _child_."  
  
The pain would go away. The promise of nonexistence would vanish. But how could he live with an angry Lina on his cape tail? The entire group would rally together to attempt to make him pay if the 'child', as Xelas called her, would die. Xellos was sure he could kill them all if it was demanded of him, but it would be the first killing that would test him the most.  
  
She trusted him. It was awkward to have trust given to him from anyone or anything. It made him uncomfortable and weary of going to visit the Vase n' Mace shop. Nothing had ever stopped him from doing what was in his race's or his best interest in the long run.  
  
If one death was to insure his service to the Lord Beastmaster and just as importantly, his own life, then he'd have to forfeit the other player. He might not like it, but really, it was all Filia's fault! Whatever pain she would feel at his dealings would be all her fault!  
  
"I--carry out---your---w-will." Xellos stuttered out.  
  
The blond woman stood to her full height as she let the tinkling of a true laugh ring in the great hall. "You are indeed a clever little wolf, Xellos." She smirked. "If you wish for your conscience to be clear so be it, I have no qualms about seeing that _thing_ dead and rotted."  
  
A swell of emotion pumped in the priests breast for all but a second, but it was still potent enough for the Beastmaster to notice. Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.  
  
"Kill her." The woman hissed. Then, without warning, the Lord opened her hand towards the creature she called her own and released a battering ram of pure energy into his body. Xellos' primal howls could be heard from one end of the island to the other, shaking the wolf packs currently residing there and making them growl in warning to the unknown trouble brewing.  
  
Xellos never felt such a painfully beautiful release. It was as if he was being forged again. Every fiber of his form swooned with the pure negative emotion of his creator. IThis/I is why he lived! This high! This freedom of caring, the love of the hate of the humans! To be their fear when they claimed to be strong! This was it! Xelas was reviving him and sending a screaming reminder of who he was and what it was he was always meant to do!  
  
When the sensation faded into an afterglow of power, Xellos felt more like his old self than he had in years. With his newly loaned strength, the Beastmaster's favorite tool climbed to his knees. "Your will be done, Lord Beastmaster."  
  
Xelas raised her glass. "Then do it."

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Xellos wasn't too happy about being forced to walk the five mile distance between were he teleported and where Filia's shop was located. There was little choice in the matter since the cause of his illness could feel his coming and goings. He wasn't too fond of having anyone know his 'secrets' and since he was powerless to do anything about it, he liked it even less.  
  
It was still in the early hours of the morning when he pushed the back door to the shop open quietly. Xellos was no longer a stranger in this home, nor was he unwanted. Filia had finally broke about two years or so ago and allowed him to experience things which, he remembered bitterly, was the reason he was deathly ill beneath his master's borrowed strength.  
  
Slipping quickly past the main shop area and up the steps to the second floor where his sleeping assignment dwelled, Xellos paused only briefly in front of the doorway before entering.  
  
The sleeping female didn't stir when he crept closer to where she slept soundly on her back. She didn't flinch or murmur as he slowly drew the gifted knife from the astral plane. Through the haze and spell Xelas had protected him with, Xellos felt something akin to dread rise up in him. It was impossible, he knew, for him to feel these things with the extra power flowing through his hurting form.  
  
Since Xelas found Lina and crew somewhat redundant as of late, she didn't want her general being chased by the fiery red head for the murder and thus decided to make it look like a horrible human murder. The knife was to serve as a typical mortal way of dealing with problems when it came to murder. To purge the race of impurity, Xellos' mind cooed laughingly.  
  
His eyes slowly opened, the amethyst seemed to glow like a cat's under the moon light's gentle touch. He was the thing of nightmares, the horrid sound in the middle of the night that kept children up cowering under their blankets. Xelloss was a mazoku and she was the proof that he had let his fun get in the way of his work. If she continued to breath, he'd die. The pure and simple emotion pulsating off this female was enough to make him ill normally, but when it was directed so strongly towards him--it was cancerous.  
  
Eating him from the inside out, this emotion was. If he didn't correct it soon, it would prove to be fatal. Irreversible. Terminal.  
  
After surviving so many brushes with oblivion, Xelloss didn't want to be remembered as a powerful general and priest of the Lord Beastmaster who was poisoned by the simple creature in front of him.  
  
Drawing his lips down into a deeply inset grimace, his gloved hand tightened around the handle of the blade. When this was finished, he'd never be able to set foot within twenty miles of Lina or the others. They'd kill him or at least they would try their hardest before he laughingly sent them into the darkness of death.  
  
Raising the knife into the air, he paused again. There was still a voice in his head, a parasite in his thoughts crying out desperately for him not to do this. What type of being was he to take this life in place of his own?  
  
His answer, he was a monster. Xellos was a creature of darkness. Killing was inevitable both in and out of war. He was fighting for his life and should there be made a cure, he was certainly going to do anything within his strength to make sure it worked.  
  
Even the death of the sleeping female laying so oblivious in front of him.  
  
This is what she deserved for making him suffer so much in the past months.  
  
It was her fault. It had nothing to do with him.  
  
He was only acting out on survival instincts.  
  
With his convictions and courage at the highest point he could manage to get them, Xellos narrowed his eyes and with one quick motion, he brought the dagger above his head.  
  
Then she turned, eyes upon him and as he brought down the knife, she only said one thing to him.  
  
The knife missed, at the last second he pushed it deep into the pillow beside her head.  
  
Her eyes were on his, large and frightened.  
  
Before her voice could ring out, Xellos felt the rush of power leave him.  
  
Falling to his feet, he groaned.  
  
The feeling of her terror only suppressed the other feeling slightly.  
  
His last command to his power was to teleport him out of the damned house.

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Xelas gave a cold smirk as she watched her reflection in her red wine, a cigarette dangling lazily off her fingertips in her other hand.  
  
Such a nuisance. The entire dragon race was nothing but a huge problem that, given the proper go ahead and a decent reason for war, would be wiped off the face of the planet. The mazoku were blatantly evil and manipulative while those of the precious dragon race hid their hate and loathing under the guise of being holy. Such hypocrites.  
  
Lounging in her red velvet throne, the Beastmaster weighed the question of whether it was worse to be flag waving evil or hypocritically evil.  
  
Did it matter? Let the dragons pretend to be righteous for their short time on earth. Everything would end up the same when the time came for the Lord of Nightmares to reclaim to world into complete and utterly beautiful chaos.  
  
All thoughts were put on hold when the familiar sound of her greatest creation teleporting caught her sharp senses, Xelas lazily glanced in the direction where the sound had originated.  
  
The simple glance caused the great mazoku to jump to her feet and glare like death at the form hunched over in her presence. Anger, raw and fierce, rose up in her heart and transferred to her hand which shattered the wine flute.  
  
In her heated state, the master of the island lashed out at the nearest thing which happened to be her underused foot stool. The stool Xelas kicked skittered across her thrown room. Each hit slowed, much like the 'heartbeat' Xellos possessed. The angered woman quickly strode over to her priest, grabbed a fist full of his messy purple locks and hauled him to her face level.  
  
"What are you doing back? Why is she still alive!" The pain thrumming through the general was too much for his tired body. The thick black and violet fur started to surface on his arms as his walking staff clanked on the marble and gold tiled floor.  
  
"I--couldn't." Xelloss gave his trademarked smirk and Xelas let him fall in a lump in at her feet in disgust.  
  
"I can't believe it!" She howled. "You've slayed thousands of creatures, humans and dragons in your life and you say you can't kill one _more_?" Xelas teeth were clenched, her casual and cool demure forgotten along with the blood red wine and long cigarettes. Whirling around, her high heels clicking loudly on the floor, she dropped herself into her throne once again.  
  
Xellos didn't retort to her exclamation. He didn't give a wink or a smile or anything else she had grown accustomed to him doing. He lay on her floor letting his life being sucked out of him by her. The emotions she emanated was enough to kill him because there was nothing he could do to stop it. She was unreasonable about her affection. For her, it was as natural and normal as breathing. Instead of touching the Lord's heart, is annoyed the hell out of her.  
  
"I hope whatever it was, was worth it, Xelloss." The Beastmaster snapped, her 'son' reverting into his more wolfish appearance.  
  
Using the thin string of power he still held onto, the priest forced his body to change back into that of a human's. "Y-you wouldn't understand." He gurgled softly.  
  
"I suppose I wouldn't." She replied flatly. "I would have taken care of the problem before it became an issue." His power was deflating as the clothes dissolved off of him. Xelas couldn't save him. With all her power, it wouldn't help. The emotion was going to choke him for as long as he existed. Gritting her fang like teeth, the female's eyes glowed with frustration. She was stuck. There was only a few things she knew for certain and all of them started with Xellos' death.  
  
The Beastmaster would be forced to extend even more energy, make a new creation to take over for the pathetic, panting form laying on her throne room and then force the creation to build itself a new reputation. Xellos was already a well known slayer.  
  
"Damn it." She growled. "Why didn't you do it?"  
  
Xellos gave silence as a reply.  
  
"What was it." He might be barley living but he wasn't dead and in the end Xelas would not allow him to defy her if he hadn't his entire life.  
  
"Because of what she said." He hissed out, eyes closed and head lolled back.  
  
"And what, mighty Xelloss, was that?" Why shouldn't she mock this pathetic weakling? He was a proud and powerful mazoku brought to his knees by that _child_. "What brought about your pitiful and embarrassing downfall?"  
  
"She---" Xelloss gave a half hearted smirk, "…called me da…" His power exhausted itself out before he could finish the answer, but the smirk he bore never left his face as he faded away.Xelas howl shook the foundations of her palace as somewhere across the world, a tiny purpled hair girl yawned in her crib. In the morning Filia would be terrified and confused to see a dagger thrust into her baby daughter's pillow.

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Author's Note: Okay, no flames. This is my second Slayers fic ever. This was an idea I had for a long time. It is known that Xellos is disgusted with 'positive emotions' so I got to thinking what if it was natural love just for him? Shrugs Probably get mixed ideas on this but it is a FAN fiction. And since this is my fan fiction, I say, SURE! It can happen! . Thanks for reading and review if you liked it! If not, then please let the silence speak for itself. AND not to mention I was having writer's block with several other stories of mine and you always have to start somewhere with a genre! 


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